paper flowers don't bloom (they last)
by MirrorShard
Summary: "The Infinity Stones were made to be found." The question everybody asks: Where are those freaking Infinity Stones Thanos and the entire universe seems to be searching for? (The question nobody asks: Who and what are the Avengers exactly?)


**Warning:**_ Alternate Universe, Canon Divergence, Not Canon Compliant, Alternate Interpretation of the Infinity Stones_

* * *

**paper flowers don't bloom (they last)**

* * *

_The Infinity Stones are not simply stones. They are energy. They are intent. They are will. They are origin. They are beyond our understanding and beyond our perception. They can take many shapes and forms, but before everything else they are a concept. An idea._

_And yet despite all that, they can be found._

_They were made to be found._

* * *

_Time_

* * *

Thor is at his heart a simple man.

Not in the sense that he is stupid — Thor has never found the same passion for history and books and knowledge that burns so brightly in Loki, may never possess the same razor-sharp wit that his brother wields with the same deadliness as his daggers, but Thor is smart and intuitive and far more calculating than anyone, safe his mother and Loki and perhaps his father give him credit for — but in the sense that he is generally happy to live his life one day at a time.

Perhaps he has to thank Asgardian's long lifespan for this. For the calm with which he regards the history he has no desire to discover, for he has lived it himself thousands of years ago, and once was more than enough. For the lack of hurry when facing an uncertain future, knowing you will in all likelihood be around long enough to see it come to pass.

Knowing, even after thousands of years, the universe can still surprise you — and that it is those surprises that make life bearable. Make life _interesting_.

Even after having spent much time on Midgard in recent years, there are still many things about mortals that Thor doesn't understand. Their obsession with time travel — with traveling into the past, jumping head-first into the future — is one of them.

Jane had tried to explain it to him. The fascination of exploring lost civilizations, of getting a chance to undo your own mistakes and make better choices, the concept of knowing what is to come and how it may affect the present... Thor had liked listening to her, to the genuine enthusiasm and boundless curiosity, see her eyes sparkle with fascination. But he hadn't really understood.

From what Thor has seen, it doesn't matter if you have two hours or fifteen thousand years of time at your hands — at the end of the day, time is intangible and unstoppable and even with an endless supply, you'll always feel it racing through your fingers, running out too quickly to accomplish all your goals.

That — the endless, boring court meetings, the uneventful evenings filled with laughter and mead and jokes that never change, the sudden, startling realization that after having traveled the universe for centuries you are suddenly running out of time — that is _life_.

Time is linear and cyclic, is constant and ever-changing, is _always_ and _never enough_ and Thor has little interest in hypothetical scenarios, in jumping back and forth between _is_ and _was_ and _will_ be. He has no need for any more than the time he's been given.

And if he dreams of better times — his mother's warm embrace, the safest place in the entire universe, his brother's jokes, back when they were still amusing instead of hurtful — long passed or never been sometimes, with the clarity of a freshly-born memory, that is just what dreams offer us. A dual edge of peace and missed opportunities.

There are no theories and time twists and paradoxes because Thor has no need for them. At his heart, he's a simple man with simple wishes. Some of which he works for, some of which are already beyond his reach.

And time — like life, like Thor — goes on.

* * *

_Space_

* * *

Long before Bruce grows up, he learns to be small. To make himself fit into places people don't give a second glance, squeeze into tiny spaces that shouldn't fit until he makes it work.

He puts things into his pockets and finds them days later. Small, odd things, like missing keys and chewing gum and coins. They're never full, his pockets, but Bruce doesn't think pockets are supposed to be full. And anyways, he has bigger things to worry about.

Like that time he opened his closet and found endless legions of monsters with scary, glowing eyes staring back at him. Like that time he pulled a window open and could feel the air getting sucked out of the room, a black nothingness before him that sucked everything in. Like that time Bruce stumbled through the door, aching and desperately, and he doesn't know how he made it to the hospital. Somehow he was just _there_.

Things don't necessarily change, but Bruce grows up.

He stops believing in monsters in his closet and under his bed. Stops believing he can reach the milky way through his window. Stops squeezing himself into too small places that people keep telling him he doesn't fit in.

(Sometimes Bruce carries books in his backpack that he's been searching for months. He's a forgetful person, apparently.)

In retrospect, things were always gonna go wrong in that damn lab.

But even with all his degrees and theoretical knowledge, Bruce couldn't have foreseen the Hulk. And even after living with him for years, he is no closer to understanding it. The phenomenon. The way the Hulk works. The rules, all the god damn rules of physics he breaks every god damn time.

As Bruce shifts back and forth with the Hulk, sometimes on purpose, often accidentally, perhaps one of the strangest sensations will always be the way he grows. The way he twists his mass, changes his body and twists the space around him to make it work.

(There's a crazed, genocidal demigod somewhere in Bruce's future that looks at him in horrified terror — and for a brief moment, Bruce wonders what this monster sees when it looks at him to fear him so.

And it is many years after that, when Bruce doesn't just change but consumes the space around him, leaves nothing behind, that he asks himself for the first time whether Loki feared him _enough_.)

* * *

_Mind_

* * *

Steve sees the world with a certain clarity, long before the serum fixes his color-blindness and gets his body up to speed with what his head has already figured out a long time ago. He looks over the busy streets of New York and thinks _pattern_, follows grumbled debates in smokey diners with terrible coffee and learns _politics_, watches two old men play chess on a corner twice a week and understands _strategy_.

The thing is, Steve knows he's smart. And nobody's ever called him stupid — but that doesn't matter when he doesn't have the physical strength to back his ideas up.

When war comes, deciding to sign up is the easiest thing Steve has ever done. Getting in, well. That's what brings him to a government-sanctioned human experiment — and Steve is smart enough to know that 'government-sanctioned' isn't much of an assurance in dark times like these.

(Doctor Erskine takes a shine to him. Steve isn't sure why, if it's the potential the man sees in him, for what his serum might be able to do or something else. But they end up chatting a few times during the days before the experiment starts and surprisingly Steve finds he has quite a few things to say about the composition of the serum.

And if Doctor Erskine makes a few last-minute changes that never make it into his notes — what with him getting killed in the direct aftermath of the successful implementation — well.

Nobody thinks to ask Steve whether he understands the chemical details. And after witnessing firsthand how far HYDRA's arm reaches, Steve wouldn't have told them anyways.)

War is uglier and crueler than anything Steve had imagined. But there is light to be found — in the people around him, the men following him, the friends he makes among those just as terrified and determined as he is.

"You bring out the best in me," Peggy tells him once, as they outline their new plan of attack, a challenging smirk on her red-painted lips that dares him to do even better.

A few weeks later, Howard refers to Steve as his muse and inspiration — a comment that the Howling Commandos tease him endlessly for.

It's Bucky — of course it's Bucky — who finds him after dinner that day, crushing a rare cigarette between his fingers as he stares blindly ahead. "You do, you know?" he says, and nothing else.

Doesn't mention the shots he's taken in the last fight — the ones Steve could've sworn were impossible, except that impossible is a word that's lost much of its initial meaning these days.

"That's a good thing, isn't it?" Steve asks. Try as he might, he can't make his voice as light as he wants to.

If he'd turn his head, he knows he'd see the same question on Bucky's face, the same doubt. What do we really know about this serum? What do we really know about what it does? Isn't it just too good to be true?

But Steve doesn't turn. Because they're in the middle of a war they can't lose and need all the help they can get. They'll deal with everything else later.

(Bucky falls and Steve follows and later turns out to be much, much later than either of them could have hoped to imagine.)

* * *

_Power_

* * *

Natasha never shares more than the barebones of the skeleton that is her time in the hands of the Red Room with anyone. Entire years are summed up in simple words and descriptions that will never accurately express the horror underneath. Small girls with unsmiling faces and sharp elbows, tied to their beds with handcuffs and fear, turned into cold, merciless killers.

Black Widows, Natasha says, calm, clinical, detached.

That is all SHIELD needs to know about a program too easily replicated.

Natasha never talks about the moves they taught her, again and again, an endless routine until she can do them in her sleep. Never talks about how she was always the last one to fall asleep. How she moved faster and faster until she noticed the other girls couldn't keep up. How sometimes, in the rare, quiet moments she has, Natasha closes her eyes and swear she can hear electricity humming in her veins.

But the Red Room has taught her all about hidden trump cards (all about the limits of humanity and how far some are willing to push beyond them) and Natasha has no wish to test SHIELD's respect for ethnic guidelines.

She waits for that one mission where she'll be too fast, too strong, will mess up. Because Black Widows are made of marble, but they aren't perfect — false confidence gets you killed faster than any other mistake.

It doesn't come.

(It takes Natasha years to realize that her first slip has nothing to do with her ability to drop-kick the Hulk into a crate.)

The truth is, Natasha doesn't mess up. She's a child raised as a killer, a girl trained for murder and hunting. At SHIELD, she's almost at home. Not quite comfortable, but as close as she ever gets. Functional. And that's the operative word isn't it?

(The first thing Phil Coulson notices about Natasha Romanoff is her calm aura. There is nothing manic or desperate about her, not even when they have her surrounded, sniper rifles aimed at her forehead, the ultimate _nowhere left to go_ painted on the wall for all to see.

The second thing is the lack of nightmares. The third is her odd, emotional connection with Clint Barton.

Coulson knows more about the Black Widow program than most people. But what truly disturbs him is not Natasha's eerily efficient kills, it's the way she's handled her unconventional upbringing. It's the lack of trauma and psychological problems. It's her settled state of mind, her steadiness. There's a layer of steel underneath her bright red hair and calculating eyes that even a lifetime with the Red Room hasn't touched. An unbreakable core that doesn't yield, not to anything.

_Handle with caution_, Coulson notes in his first assessment. _Do not push_.)

Natasha comes close only two times in her life. The first time is after Budapest, after Clint lost most of his hearing and is looking at her for anything, anything at all to believe in, and Natasha can't carry that responsibility, doesn't want anyone to ever look at her like that again and she almost—

The second time, the Winter Soldier re-enters her life like a forgotten childhood horror remembering its true form. Her eyes fly over paper after paper, observe data, anything and everything she can get her hands on before she dumps it all — almost all — on the Internet.

(She never tells anyone about the words they yelled at her until she was deaf to their original meaning. Never tells anyone about the endless repetitions, the carefully calculated conditioning. About watching it sink like poison into the minds of those around her. About getting better and better at pretending, so they would finally leave her alone.

Natasha never tells anyone but when she's twenty-six and an old handler uses those words on her, she guts him without pause and never looks back.)

* * *

_Soul_

* * *

Clint doesn't put a name on it for the longest time. It's just instincts, really, honed by years of pulling one after the other over unsuspecting people as a carnie, followed by a surprisingly successful, if not particularly long-lived career as a mercenary. He says 'no' to more jobs than he takes. Sometimes because the pay isn't right or the risk isn't worth it. But mostly because Clint can read people.

To this day, it's still the best way of putting it that he can think of.

There's just something there, in the back of his mind that tells Clint when a customer is about to double-cross him. Like an itch in his mind that he can't quite scratch.

He looks at people sometimes, on the streets, just passing by, and he picks out the ones he wouldn't mind hitting with an arrow or two.

It's that same itch that makes Clint listen Phil Coulson when the man first approaches him. And he doesn't need to read the contracts or listen to the empty promises SHIELD makes him. All Clint needs is to take a long, hard look at Director Fury before he makes it choice.

(All Clint needs is to take one long, hard look at any target SHIELD points him at before he makes his choice. Clint's tendency to disobey orders is only overshadowed by his success rate.

It's what helps him convince Coulson to give Natasha a shot. It's what helps him knowing she wants that shot.)

Clint reads people. Better than Natasha, maybe. Not that there's any way to reliably measure such a skill. But it's just damn good instincts. That's all there is to it.

(Only years later, after his future, his family has crumbled to dust, after a fight that's cost him everything, does Clint put his gift to use. He looks and looks and looks, closer than he's ever dared to before.

And it's there, surrounded by dead bodies and blood and rain, the hysterical laughter of a dying man ringing in his ears, that Clint smiles the only smile his lips still remember.

It's easy to become judge, jury and executioner when you see everyone for who they really are. When they can't hide their sins, can't evade your gaze, their deepest secrets bared for you to see.)

* * *

_Reality_

* * *

Tony talks a lot about his plans for a first robot. It's the topic of his master thesis, so it's not like he has much of a choice and his supervisor is awesome. But all too soon everyone and their grandma's cat seem to have an opinion on the feasibility of his project. Tony's getting tired of having people tell him what he can and can't do.

He doesn't need daily reminders of the limits of their current technology. He doesn't need the mocking quips and eye-rolls of people who don't have the guts to say '_just another Stark with his head in the clouds_' to his face.

DUM-E turns out not even half of what Tony hoped he would be — but still more than anyone else expected.

(He's Tony's pride and joy, but that's another topic altogether.)

Tony doesn't say a word about JARVIS. Not until it's over and done with. At first because it's just a spur-of-the-moment idea. Then because he and Obadiah have different ideas about Stark Industries, and are arguing enough as it is.

There's no one around to tell Tony that AIs aren't actually possible outside of science fiction. No one around to tell him that a computer program can't replicate emotions, can't actually understand sarcasm.

JARVIS surpasses any program the world has seen — not that the world knows as much. Tony is careful to keep the true extend of his capacities quiet.

There's no need to share this feat with the world. Tony knows what he's created, and that's more than enough.

(Tony builds himself an arc reactor in a cave, dried blood and sand on his lips. It's months later, when he finally runs the numbers. Figures out that the materials he's used shouldn't have worked, shouldn't have been stable, should have overloaded the human organism instead of integrating seamlessly.

He stops the calculations then. Clearly, there's some variable he's missing because the math is wrong.

And so what if he has the self-built equivalent of a star in his chest? So what if mankind isn't supposed to build stars just because they need one?

He's Tony Stark and he does whatever the hell he wants.)

* * *

"Make a wish, Mister Stark!" Peter Parker will insist years later with a brilliant smile as he pushes a self-made, oddly shaped cake in front of Tony.

And.

Tony looks up. Meets the eyes of these familiar strangers, his team, his family, the people he's been drawn to from the moment they met. The first people he'd instantly clicked with, like something finally slid into place and settled down, and all the ones they'd collected since then. Since they first started out as a rag-tag group of six desperately cobbling together a last-minute plan to save the world.

Closes his eyes. Blows out the candles.

_Makes a wish_.


End file.
